Abstract:
Abdominal surgeries carry considerable risk of gastrointestinal and intra-abdominal hemorrhage, which could possibly cause patient death. Photoacoustic imaging is one solution to overcome this challenge by providing visualization of major blood vessels during surgery. We investigate the feasibility of in vivo blood vessel visualization for photoacoustic-guided liver and pancreas surgeries. In vivo photoacoustic imaging of major blood vessels in these two abdominal organs was successfully achieved after a laparotomy was performed on two swine. Three-dimensional photoacoustic imaging with a robot-controlled ultrasound (US) probe and color Doppler imaging were used to confirm vessel locations. Blood vessels in the in vivo liver were visualized with energies of 20 to 40 mJ, resulting in 10 to 15 dB vessel contrast. Similarly, an energy of 36 mJ was sufficient to visualize vessels in the pancreas with up to 17.3 dB contrast. We observed that photoacoustic signals were more focused when the light source encountered a major vessel in the liver. This observation can be used to distinguish major blood vessels in the image plane from the more diffuse signals associated with smaller blood vessels in the surrounding tissue. A postsurgery histopathological analysis was performed on resected pancreatic and liver tissues to explore possible laser-related damage. Results are generally promising for photoacoustic-guided abdominal surgery when the US probe is fixed and the light source is used to interrogate the surgical workspace. These findings are additionally applicable to other procedures that may benefit from photoacoustic-guided interventional imaging of the liver and pancreas (e.g., biopsy and guidance of radiofrequency ablation lesions in the liver).
My Contributions
This paper stems from my summer research as a Leadership Alliance Scholar in the PULSE Lab at Johns Hopkins University (PI: Dr. Muyinatu (Bisi) Bell). During this internship, I contributed to the development of custom light delivery tools and autonomous robotic visual servoing for photoacoustic-guided liver surgery. I also presented this work at both the Leadership Alliance National Symposium and the Johns Hopkins Summer Research Symposium.
Leadership Alliance
From the Leadership Alliance website
‘The Leadership Alliance, founded at Brown University in 1992 as a partnership of 23 institutions, came together to develop underrepresented students into outstanding leaders and role models in academia, business, and the public sector. Today, this consortium has grown to 41 partners and has provided research, mentoring, and networking experiences to over 6000 scholars. The Leadership Alliance uses a time-tested model to leverage its collective resources to address the shortage of individuals from historically underrepresented groups in doctoral training programs, academia, and the broader research workforce.’
Skills
Computer-Aided Design (Solidworks), 3D Printing, Hand Tools, Data Analysis, Robotic Visual Seroving, Ultrasound, Laser Operation, Beamforming, Animal Studies
